Getting to Know Ben Gorham, of Byredo

Ben Gorham, the founder of Byredo Parfums.“I think soaps are classics; I was brought up with them and I want to bring them back!’’ declares Ben Gorham, the 6’5’’ tattooed creative force behind http://shop.byredo.com/" target="_blank">Byredo Parfums, which launches its 10th scent, Tulipe, along with a bath-and-body line that includes creams, washes, and, yes, soaps, at Barneys New York outposts nationwide this month.

It’s not every day that professional athletes find their way into the cosmetics industry, but that is exactly what happened to Gorham. Born in Stockholm while his Canadian father was working on his PhD there, Gorham loved basketball as a child, but never thought he would be a natural for the game. “My parents were short. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but when I was 16, I really shot up, and suddenly my parents were only up to my armpits,’’ he laughs. By the time he was a young adult, he was playing basketball competitively, first in the U.S., where he went to college, and then professionally in Europe. “I was dead serious about it,” he says. But although he was a Swedish native, Gorham was unable to obtain a European passport, and after a legal battle that lasted several years, he gave up the sport. “I thought, How long can I do this? It became about money and not the sport.”

Ben Gorham’s latest scent, Tulipe.

Looking for alternative outlets, he enrolled in art school. “I was determined to explore my creative side,” he explains. It was at a dinner during that time, when Gorham was 27, that he met renowned Swedish perfumer Pierre Wulff and became fascinated with his work. “I thought about it for quite some time after our meeting; then I contacted him and we talked about the creative process.”

Gorham was particularly intrigued by the connection between scent and memory. “I remembered the fragrance my father wore when I was a child,” he says. “I told Pierre that it smelled like the essence of green beans, and he was able to tell me what the fragrance was. It’s a bittersweet memory for me, because my father left when I was six or seven, but I wanted to re-create that scent in a modern way.”

Soon after that conversation, Gorham traveled to Chembur, his mother’s hometown outside Mumbai, India, which he found filled with aromas of spices and incense. “The trip brought back all kinds of memory, largely through the smell,” he recalls. “That was the spark for me. I wanted to create a fragrance that evoked the feeling there. The beginning of the project was very self-indulgent. I wasn’t thinking commercially, but I enjoyed it so much I felt the need to create a business structure so I could keep on doing it.”

A selection of products from Byredo’s new bath-and-body line: the Rose Noir Body Lotion, the Pulp Body Wash and Body Lotion, and the Gypsy Water Body Lotion.

Gorham discussed his ideas with some small companies, which in turn mixed up the scents. He then brought them to Wulff, who told him that they didn’t quite work and hooked him up with two top perfumers, Jerome Epinette, in New York, and Olivia Jiacobetti, in Paris. They helped Gorham develop his first fragrance for Byredo, an overdose of green notes based on those memories of his father. “I didn’t know anything,” he admits. “And I was surprised at how quick the process was. It took seven months and really fulfilled my emotional criteria.’’

Over the next two and a half years, Gorham created four more scents, and in 2006 he launched the Byredo collection—Green, Chembur, Pulp, Rose Noir, and Gypsy Water—in Paris. In 2008, he brought it to Barneys New York, and by the end of last year, it had become that store’s second-best-selling fragrance collection. Soon after, he created Blanche, for his girlfriend, Natasa, after the birth of their child. Most recently, he partnered with Acne Jeans on a candle called Lilla Nygatan No. 23, and he’s currently collaborating on a fragrance with the art-and-design firm M/M Paris.

“A lot of people say that tulips don’t have a scent, so this is a fantasy based on the idea of a tulip,’’ he says of the new Tulipe.

Translating his emotions into fragrance is something Gorham loves, and although he has called upon childhood memories and other personal inspirations, some things are off limits to his commercial venture. “I went into a different mindset after my daughter was born,” he says of his one-year-old, Ines. “I am much calmer, not so restless, and I find a lot of joy in seeing our creations progress, but I promised myself I would not create a fragrance for her.”

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